Jonathan Ford & Bruno Dubé: "We will develop broader co-production opportunities"

Last September, Abacus Media Rights was acquired by Sphere Media following the conclusion of Amcomri Entertainment's sale of the company, resulting in the creation of Sphere Abacus. Jonathan Ford, Sphere Abacus' Managing Director, and Bruno Dubé, Sphere Media's CEO, spoke with Señal News about what this merger means and the future of the Sphere Media group.
The executives explained that Sphere Abacus's goal is to continue operating exactly as it did before. "We will keep working with a wide range of independent producers and continue to license a wide range of scripted and non-scripted content to buyers across all platforms and broadcasters. Now, through the ownership of Sphere Media, we can extend our relationships with Canadian production partners and broadcasters both within Sphere Media and externally," Ford and Dubé stated.

Talking about the company's new role as Sphere Media's distribution arms, they added: "Even before the transaction, we were working closely with Sphere Media and selling a number of their titles (scripted and non-scripted), and this is how the two parties got to know one another. So now, as Sphere Abacus, we will develop broader co-production opportunities with international buyers across multiple genres and languages."

Looking ahead, Ford and Dubé agreed that investments in productions from independent producers remain a key and significant source of programming: "We will continue to work on co-production models, putting forward distribution advances and securing pre-sales. Several new investments will be announced soon."

Another key is content diversification in order to appeal to different audiences and markets. In this case, the executives depicted the process behind that strategy: "We carefully assess every title that we acquire, checking that sales opportunities match the investment being made. That is why we look for a broad range of programming across many different genres, ensuring we cover a significant portion of the international market and audiences," they explained. In that broad range of content, both highlighted an increased importance of locally relevant programming, as the market goes back to being locally-led as opposed to streamer-led: "Our focus has moved to funding programming that is relevant for numerous territories, making certain it has as broad an appeal as possible."

During Mipcom, the company launched three new dramas, including "Scrublands: Silver," the sequel to "Scrublands," which has proved to be a huge success. It also launched a range of documentaries and non-scripted series, including "Gunpowder Seige," "The Last Musician of Auschwitz," "Breaking Bird: The Rise and Fall of Twitter," "Billy and Dom Eat the World," and "The Titan Disaster" (w/t).